


The Castle

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Dracula - Bram Stoker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-01-10
Updated: 2005-01-10
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:08:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1638173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A slashy reworking of Jonathan Harker's stay in Dracula's castle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Castle

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Louise Lux

 

 

I.

The centuries-old stone feels like dissolving mud under his fingers, and he takes delight in curling them into the decaying surface, kneading, kneading, till the stone turns warm from his exertions though his touch remains cold--even colder than the stiff Carpathian breezes that slice through the Balkan countryside. The wolves howl in the distance, and their hunger stirs his own; he throws his head back and allows his senses to be overcome by their calls, mouth open as though in silent mimicry of his children, nostrils flaring to welcome the smell of death, ignorance, and superstition, tongue lightly flicking against the chill air to taste the specters of old blood and the promise of a new hunt.

In his hold the castle looms. Its crumbling foundations groan under its weight and that of time, practically turning itself into grass, loam, and bark as the countryside doggedly continues to assert its dominance, gradually eating away at the castle and claiming its soul for its own. The count clings to the outside walls as he pauses; his body hugs moss-eaten rock, limbs stretched out, lizard-like, fingers and toes digging into the cold, uneven surface. His cloak flutters in the midnight breeze as he stares up at a certain window several feet hence. There he remains--embracing dying stone while pondering, his feeding momentarily ignored for other--more pressing--matters. Below his still figure the castle walls drop into thick darkness, and in a cottage some distance from where he muses, a child shifts restlessly under its ragged blankets, whimpering plaintively for its mother. It will be the last time that the infant does so.

II.

His misgivings grow the longer he remains in the castle. While at first he blames the local folk and their customs and oppressive terror of midnight (he's never been able to shake off the unsettled feeling their prayers and entreaties have nurtured in him), he now slowly realizes that his plight is a good deal worse than that. And, yes, he also wishes that he could blame the drastic shifts that have been forced on his natural timetable. What more can mere flesh and blood take, after all, with activities normally reserved for daytime now being the sole province of the night? Harker often ends his late night conversations with his host with a severe upbraiding directed at himself, and he vows to be less of a gentleman the next time around and therefore cut the conversation short. Perhaps, he says quietly (and with a nervous glance around his room) the count truly _is_ unmindful of time--perhaps the young Englishman truly _is_ entertaining company--so much so that his strange host forgets himself.

He clings to these thoughts, forcing out what flimsy comfort is there, and it washes over him with all the permanence of heat from a dying ember. And what comfort can be had, as well, when he finds himself in the count's unnerving company, his hand tightly clasped in the other's as they bid each other good morning? What comfort is there when his natural warmth is enclosed in a cold, bloodless grip, his skin alternately scratched and soothed by sharp nails and feathery hair sprouting from his host's palms? He turns his mind to his fiance whenever he can in hopes that she can somehow be his talisman. She does--to an extent. Once his head is cradled in his pillow, he dreams about something, but that something isn't Miss Murray. After all, she certainly never (even in his dreams) searches for him by crawling, lizard-like, up and down crumbling castle walls.

III.

He's had his fill of both genders at any age, their destruction lying in not much more than the necessity of a feeding. There were, of course, those occasional hunts that were more in the realm of play and thrill-seeking, and he's learned to temper his nocturnal activities with these moments of fun. His young guest holds a particular fascination for him--one that can't be assuaged by commonplace slaughter or even promises of eternity shared in a moment of bloody gorging. The count ponders over this unexpected development both within his coffin and without, Harker's vaguely nervous presence only deepening his curiosity and grim amusement. Deep in his ancestral vaults, the smell of earth and organic rot tickling his nostrils, his belly swollen with another victim's blood, he slowly drifts off to sleep with a contented smile. His eyes remain open as he slumbers though a thin film blunts their fire, and their dead gaze is fixed in the direction of a certain bedroom above.

He feels no great loss when he sleeps--the momentary separation from his guest being not much more than fancy, if one were to consider it. After all, the castle's there, and through its decaying stones and faded tapestries he continues to assert his presence. Through them he continues to walk though it might be daytime, the shadows being his disembodied self, and all other physical objects being extensions of his senses. Though he might sleep, he _knows_ what goes on beyond his coffin--beyond the old chapel and its graveyard--beyond the endless, empty rooms and their abandoned furniture. Every footfall of an earthly guest is felt against the dark floor--the pressure, the pace--and the sleeping count knows if the young man is in a hurry or otherwise. Every touch of a book or a candleholder or a mullioned window is felt far, far below, and the count knows if his guest is contemplative, curious, or anxious. He is, after all, his castle.

IV.

Even rest begins to elude him now, throwing him more and more into a near-hallucinogenic state, and he doubts far too many things. Not even those dearly-held memories of a certain young woman somewhere in England (Miss Mina Murray--yes, that's her name) are able to sustain him much anymore. He spends a good deal of his waking hours in sleep-deprived confusion; from his room, he stumbles through dim hallways in search of a door that will open for him, but they remain stubbornly shut. Sometimes he presses an ear against the thick wood in desperate hopes of--what? A sound? A sign? A reassurance in _any_ form of his not being the only living creature in the castle? Dear God, let me hear a voice, he says into the door.

But his erratic breathing and the thundering of his heart are all that meets his ears. Every once in a while, he's managed to convince himself that he's heard the faintest sound of walking or talking beyond the locked door; there are even conversations between two (perhaps more?) people--and his spirits lift. He pounds his fists against the wood and begs admission, but nothing comes to his aid, and he becomes aware of a cold, hollow silence and realizes that he's mistaken. Again. In the meantime, the shadows lengthen around him, and his terrified form is cloaked in thickening darkness and the distant sounds of howling wolves.

V.

He's climbed up the castle walls--not unlike those princes of ages long past, whose hearts and minds were bent on their one true vocation, which encompassed nothing more than the timely rescue of a trapped lady. The count laughs his derision at these ridiculous old tales--though he might be just a touch tickled at the idea of being a destined rescuer and the long-awaited One True Love, a notion that never fails in filling the ignorant and the mediocre with the most pleasing thoughts. Indeed! he laughs as he slithers on his belly. Claw-like fingers grasp at stones and dig into them, eyes gleam expectantly as they keep their gaze on a certain window, an aquiline nose eagerly sniffs the night air, searching for that haunting scent of warm skin and blood--made all the more irresistible by the suffusion of fear and puzzlement into their very atoms. What _is_ a princely vocation, after all? he asks the castle. The defense of virtue? To right what's been made wrong? To offer hope for a happier future?

The window ledge is presently reached, and he grabs hold of it and uses it for leverage, strong arms pulling the weight of the dead as he peers inside. In satisfied silence he hangs in space, and he watches the still figure lying on its side in bed before he reaches in and, his toes clawing the outer walls, he crawls inside--barely making a sound in the darkness, his cloak dragging quietly behind him. What _is_ his princely vocation? He continues to crawl across the floor--stealthy as can be expected in any skilled hunter. Once he reaches the foot of the bed, he gradually vanishes into slow-moving mist, and it creeps under the bedclothes--slowly, languorously inching its way up, brushing past calves then knees then thighs, forcing the sleeper's legs to part restlessly from the softly insistent touch. What _is_ his princely vocation? Surely not the defense of virtue, he quietly laughs. To right what's been made wrong? Too relative! A happier future? Perhaps, perhaps. The warmth of living blood pulses against him, and he thrusts out a misty tongue and runs it slowly up a trapped thigh.

VI.

His dreams have now grown too bizarre--too frightening. He's also beginning to fear sleep though he knows that he desperately needs it. His perception's being affected as well, and it certainly doesn't help him at all if he were to spend countless hours differentiating what's real and what isn't with the desperation of a doomed man. Objects--their forms, colors, and textures--melt into each other, and Harker's forced to rub the fog out of his eyes. Sounds touch his ears like an unearthly whore, seductive and repulsive at the same time, and he sometimes hears things he's long hoped to hear. Organic decay fills his nose on occasion, and he's alternately nauseated by and drawn to the smell. His nightly conversations with the count are growing more and more difficult to sustain, for his fears are always compounded by his host's presence, and no matter how official their discussions are--and no matter how doggedly he keeps them in a businesslike note--he's always defeated in the end. And he sits before his triumphant, leering companion, completely overcome by terror and the sense of entrapment.

Memory? _What_ memory? Ah, yes--doesn't he have a fiance back in England? No? Doesn't he call her Molly? Marianne? He stares numbly at the blank sheet of paper before him, a quill limply grasped between his fingers. I should be writing a letter, he says helplessly, but to whom? Beyond his window the night deepens as do the shadows in his room. Though he doesn't see them, he feels them move around behind him--shadows without a physical source, creeping about, vague shapes that flitter independently of every law of Nature. He can even feel them touch him when he's bent over his work like this, the nape of his neck suddenly tickled by disembodied kisses.

VII.

He _is_ his castle. His stony body encloses the young Englishman who now commandeers his attention, protecting him from the elements, from the rest of Transylvania (no, the world!), from anything that might very well steer him away. So, yes, he defends virtue, after all (ah, at least to an extent). The faded furnishings and their respective accoutrements offer him the comfort of books, the familiarity of letters, and the sensual reassurance of a bedfellow. No, the young man shouldn't feel alone, and there, the count notes with a surge of triumph, lies that part of his vocation in correcting what's gone wrong. There are, finally, those carefully orchestrated moments of feeding, the penetration of a rapidly pulsing jugular enhanced by another kind of penetration, one made in tandem with that strategic bite.

Pain and pleasure, after all, are one and the same, as is the hallucinatory excitement of his guest's slow transformation. Partly roused from his sleep, his eyes are barely kept open though they stare, drugged, at the figure looming above him. The wounds on his neck seem to come alive with him, swelling in anticipation of another bite. As though drowning under the effects of an opiate, he lies obscenely spread, yielding readily to his nocturnal guest--numbed yet pleasured, conscious and yet asleep, aware and yet dreaming. The unexpected path toward eternity is now open to the young man, and there, the count tells himself, lies his third vocation of a future unmarked by death (don't _all_ mortals wish for eternal life?). He bends down, lightly wets the proffered throat with his tongue, and pierces heated skin with his teeth while the bed groans under his rhythmic thrusting.

VIII.

His senses seem to have sharpened, and that, Harker realizes, isn't as bad as he first thought. He doesn't feel as isolated now, with all those distant sounds of wordless voices and steady footfalls. He hears them all around him--to be sure, he doesn't even need to press his ears against every locked door in the castle, hoping for someone or something to answer his calls for companionship or freedom. No, not freedom. He knows now that he can't survive beyond the castle walls, seeing as how the sun's light has grown intolerable to him, and he's forced to hide from its terrible brilliance. He finds solace in the count's library, where he spends endless hours poring over antiquated volumes, waiting, with some agitation, for his host to appear.

It's a curious thing, he says in some amazement as he sits on a discolored armchair, a massive, yellowing book spread on his lap. He feels anxiety in the count's company, yes, but it seems to be one that's edged with pleasure--with a vague kind of excitement. It's the same unnamable pleasure that's made him wonder about the purpose of his visit to begin with--as well as that odd, lingering sensation that there's someone else in his life, one whom he's left behind somewhere. Harker shrugs these off quickly. These are strange thoughts, he declares, reflexively running his fingers over his throat. His dreams ought to be his refuge from those bothersome ideas; he smiles as he bends his unnaturally bright gaze down on his book.

(fin)

 

 

 


End file.
